Tag Archives: know what’s happening to people when and why

“I eventually came to understand that in harboring the anger, the bitterness and resentment towards those that had hurt me, I was giving the reins of control over to them.”

―

Isabel Lopez

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“Beware of those who are bitter, for they will never allow you to enjoy your fruit.”

―

Suzy Kassem

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Well.

Spite and resentment is one of the least discussed business ailments in the business leadership and organization world.

What I mean is that businesses around the world <including the good ole USofA> are strewn with middle management and upper management who carry a full backpack of resentment. This backpack has a nifty well designed logo on it — victim.

I would imagine <this is a guess> that this significant sprinkling of people in the business world carrying around the resentment of being victimized in some form or fashion do not hold the most senior spots but rather they hold the responsibilities most dangerous to the overall health of an organization – middle management.

They are most likely not at the top because those people got the positions they deserve <mostly>.

The ones who carry resentment are the ones who have been promoted “too slowly” or maybe haven’t been “recognized for the talents they offer” or maybe have been passed over by “someone who doesn’t know half the shit I know” … and then … to their satisfaction … they have FINALLY been promoted.

They take the step up but before they do … stop at the bottom of the stairs to pick up their backpack of resentment … and then accept the step up.

I often think of this as the ugly underbelly of ‘entitled’ or “finally getting what one deserves.” This is … uhm … in other words … resentment. And resentment carries a nasty quiver of grievance arrows to shoot when given the opportunity.

And grievances have a nasty habit of being one of those things that like to be addressed and not ignored.

Now.

Some people confuse this with “carrying a chip on their shoulder” which is what got them to where they are today.

Uhm. That’s bullshit.

People mistakenly conflate “carrying a chip on their shoulder” with ambition.

It’s not as simple as that. In fact … that simplistic ‘go about business like they have a chip on their shoulder’ is actually just a lazy attitude toward motivation.

It is more often than not some self-created ‘boogieman’ someone has created in their mind in order to go out and be your best. That’s bullshit. If that’s all you have for motivation … well … that’s just not good <for you and the people you work with>.

Yes.

In small doses a ‘chip on your shoulder’ can give you some well needed nudges to “I will show them” attitude at some key moments.

No.

Large doses, or constant, “conducting myself with a chip on my shoulder” attitude simply makes you … well … an asshole.

You become an asshole because this 100% chip on shoulder attitude actually makes hate, in some form or fashion, the energy to drive everything – it creates an outsized sense of grievance which you bring with you wherever you go.

This grievance not only seems to pour from every pore in this person but also seems to appear every time this person makes a decision <if not in the words they say>.

Yeah.

The resentment people can be crafty.

Crafty in that they justify their behavior not just based on their outsized chip but more often that they are standing up for all who have been overlooked and begrudged of what they were entitled to by some unfair system or ‘cadre of assholes driven to let mediocrity thrive.’

It’s another version of us versus them but with a total selfish foundation.

In addition.

If they are good at masking their resentment, each decision, taken as mutually exclusive of all other decisions, can maybe be explained as a ‘personal issue being addressed’ or sometimes even simply an impulsive instinctual decision.

That’s bullshit too.

I am not suggesting all employees burdened by an unhealthy weight of resentment are actually bad managers and business people <in a pragmatic competent sense> but they do have a nasty tendency to have built this façade of some “personal brand” which they have honed over time as they have been ignored & overlooked so much so that all decisions and choices get instinctually filtered through this personal brand filter.

Nothing is impulsive, nothing is “resentment driven” and nothing is “addressing a grievance” … it is all simply driven by the personal brand.

What makes this behavior confusing to people <in terms of trying to discern motivations and the sense that there is an unhealthy amount of resentment incorporated into the management style> is that there is no long term strategy … it just assumes that all transactions meet the brand therefore, in the long run, it is good.

Exceeding expectations is defined in a transaction by transaction basis and weapons used to meet expectations <responsibilities> are justified a means to an end. In other words these managers can screw anyone they want professionally but if within that specific project, assignment or transaction the greater organizational expectations are met or exceeded … well … this manager has “won.”

Oddly … this behavior creates an odd sense of consistency … & inconsistency. It can often appear inconsistent in that the actions, behavior & decisions are not particularly driven by any business philosophy or ideology … or even based on what is right or wrong. This drives the appearance of inconsistency.

The consistency is grounded on vindictiveness. This doesn’t mean any and all actions are vindictive just that if the opportunity arises to address some self-defined grievance and the window of opportunity to be vindictive opens … well … this person will jump through that window.

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“I must fight with my weapons. Not his. Not selfishness and brutality and shame and resentment.”

―

John Fowles

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Here is the problem with all that I have shared today.

Resentment is part of the devilish trinity of bad shit in a business environment – fear, anger, resentment.

All the yesterdays make this person angry and humiliated and, frankly, they feel like they have been taken advantage of.

It creates a negative emotional foundation from which all behavior and actions are leveraged from.

I could argue that this is a cultural thing. Something like a “culture of entitlement” in which people feel like they are promised promotions & money simply because they work hard.

I will not.

This is an individual issue.

Individuals are responsible and complicit in this attitude and behavior – culture does not force them to do anything and think anything on this issue.

I could argue that this is some version of culture encouraging a larger sense of victimhood.

I will not.

This is an individual issue.

It is not victimhood if you shoulder your own responsibilities and are ‘punished’ if the chips do not fall your way.

I could argue that thus is some warped version of culture encouraging unrealistic expectations.

I will not.

This is an individual issue.

Expectations are defined personally … society and culture doesn’t tell you what to expect … you craft that expectation all by your lonesome. And, I have news for everyone, while Life & business can be pretty cruel and unfair, in general, those who have ability and work hard do not typically get overlooked or left behind. Hate to tell the “resentful managers” but … well … I feel pretty confident suggesting that as a basic business truth.

The only thing I will argue is that someone who has a big backpack of resentment should never be a leader.

Why?

Anger today.

Resentment of yesterday.

Fear of tomorrow.

That is the trio of partners in crime in this sad story. I have to tell you. I am fairly sure no business wants those three sitting in any one office every day in their business. And I am absolutely sure these are not qualifications one seeks in a new employee.

“… my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age in which we live. No nation can now shut itself from the surrounding world and trot around the same old path of its fathers. A change has come over the affairs of mankind. … intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe.”

——

Frederick Douglas 1850

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“The ultimate test of man’s conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.”

―

Gaylord Nelson

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Ok.

Because of the business I am in <marketing advertising & business strategic consulting> I am constantly inundated with the hyperbole associated with “new and unique.”

That’s why I almost always step up to the plate when I hear someone suggest how the world is changing like it has never changed before.

Or that our situation has never been worse.

Or something is better than it has ever been before.

I admit.

I kind of chuckle when I hear all this.

I often seem to create a maelstrom of conversational misery when I state things like “change is the constant companion of every generation” … or say something like “it isn’t any more difficult for this generation … it is just different.”

Or even when I pull out the quotes I used to open this piece.

Frankly.

Most people my age think I am nuts when I say it.

Shit.

Most people any age.

Or think I am out of touch with what is happening around us.

Ok.

If I were sensitive, I would care.

Or more likely I would care if I didn’t find quotes like this.

“… my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age in which we live. No nation can now shut itself from the surrounding world and trot around the same old path of its fathers. A change has come over the affairs of mankind. … intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe.”

Sure sounds like something you may have heard recently from some pundit on TV.

But.

This is mid 1800’s in a speech in NYC.

It is a fact that each generation has faced some radical change and thought process and attitude shift.

Yup.

I could argue <and I have> that the more things change the more they stay the same.

They stay the same because … well … we move on, we progress, we improve upon what is. Inevitably, as that happens, each generation gets “left behind” as another races toward what will be.

Think of it as tectonic plates in which friction occurs as the new plate slowly <and sometimes quickly> surges over the older plate.

Yeah.

The older tectonic plate.

The one that is supposed to be smarter.

The one that is supposed to know the best.

The one that “got us to where we are today.”

The one that suggests “why throw away what appears to be good.”

Well.

The one has someone scraps of truth in what they are thinking.

Pieces or parts smarter and know the best?

Yes. Sure.

On the whole?

Nope.

Why?

You don’t know what you don’t know … and if you hunker down on only what you do know … well … that is called “stagnant.”

Ok.

To be fair.

A minority of those being left behind actually enjoy the change an the friction and the conflict. These are the ones who empower the youth. Fuel it. Guide it. Not restrict it. Those few get to enjoy the ride toward “what will be.”

But they are a minority.

On the whole the majority of any older generation holds on for dear life to what they know and makes them comfortable. And it would possibly be okay of they did that and remained silent … but instead they complain and gripe about what is lost within the following generations and, ultimately, go to some fairly absurd lengths to try and slow change.

It is too bad.

For by focusing on what is lost they neglect to have the amazing opportunity to see what is gained.

But.

Regardless.

In the end.

Change comes upon us whether we want it or not. As Frederick Douglas said in 1850 … ‘you cannot ignore the intellect of the world.’ Change is our constant companion <and mostly a friend> … at all times we face “a change has come over the affairs of mankind.’

True in 1850.

True in 2017.

True in 2150.

This doesn’t mean that we are not slow to change … because we are. Change in mankind is like turning a full tanker ship.

Part of this slow change is actually a reflection of mankind’s survival DNA.

And if you want to debate the ‘slow change’ than maybe accept thinking of it more like Schumpeter’s Creative Destruction. The small rise up disrupting and destroying the status quo and that of ‘the big’ … and through their destruction <eating away at the status quo> they begin recreating what is into what could be and what will be.

Now.

I am not suggesting all past experience should be ignored. But it is a fact, a truth, that the older generation needs to be able to let go of some ‘beliefs’ in order to free the change that is inevitable in the affairs of mankind.

I say that recognizing this is not a truth because they were wrong in the past but rather because they are wrong ‘now.’

Effective change demands a healthy dialogue and relationship between the past perspective and a new perspective.

And this is where the current affairs of mankind tend to fall short … they lose perspective as time goes on because they have cocooned themselves within their successful behavior.

Regardless.

This post all comes down to several overarching thoughts.

Each generation faces radical adversity.

Each generation facilitates extraordinary change <typically beneficial as a whole>.

Each older generation is extraordinarily reluctant to release that which is comfortable to them <and what they “know” … or believe to know>.

And, lastly.

We older folk, manager types, should reflect upon this.

Why?

Because we are managers.

And we are managers of those who will foster the abilities of those who will beget what will be better than what we have done or created. That doesn’t diminish what we have done. And we should embrace the fact we have created an environment for others to go farther than we were able to go.

We wonder why managing young people <call them millennials if you would like> is so difficult?

Well.

It is because we are holding them back <in general>. It’s like trying to tame mustangs in the Wild West. Except we, unlike the savvy old cowboys, don’t reflect on the beauty of the wildness of the mustang as we try and tame them. We simply see the wild untamedness and believe it is a shame they are so wild.

Older managers, to be successful, need to admire the beauty of the untamed. And not seek to break the mustangs but rather guide their energy to enable them to take the herd to the heights it deserves.

And maybe even more important … older managers need to remember they are not the mustang’s mothers & fathers but rather we are savvy cowboys seeking to guide energy.

Anyway.

Is this poetic metaphor a bad one? Maybe.

But certainly something worth thinking about.

A change has come over the affairs of mankind … uhm … the more things change the more they stay the same. This is not anything unique … this is called “progress.”

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“Those who stand for different causes during different generations often experience the same oppositions and the same difficulties as those of the previous and the next generations. That is the basis of history repeating itself.”

I was asked the other day about what I believed the internet, and connectivity’s, greatest impact on business was.

After chuckling that there was no one thing and we didn’t have enough time to talk about all the aspects that have impacted us … I did suggest one thing we don’t talk about which has a larger ripple effect on the future of business – connectivity’s impact on decision making and how we teach decision making.

There are a couple of other sociological insidious things seeping into organizational culture – discouragement of risk taking, particularly among younger employees, ‘flat’ organizations which tend to only put the senior decision makers closer to actual tactical decisions and things like that.

But what connectivity has done is make the most experienced decision makers more available 24/7 and younger people more likely to “send them a quick text asking them what to do” or an email with the question at hand … so that the younger person doesn’t have to make the decision. This translates into less decision making experience, less real ‘outcome of decision experience’ as well as all the critical thinking that gets crammed into one’s head when forced to make some decision <which always takes on some extraordinary size & significance when younger and less experienced>.

I believe this is a real issue.

In fact … I believed it was so important I googled it to do some research for this post.

‘how connectivity has killed decision making’ … 0 results.

how the internet has killed decision making’ … 0 results on the topic … most on ‘overthinking’ or ‘Information overload is killing our ability to make decisions’

I even tried ‘how the smartphone has killed decision making’ and got zilch other than some crap about how ‘smartphones are destroying a generation’ and shit like that.

Lets be clear.

This isn’t about ‘distractions’ or ‘short attention span’ this is about circumventing critical decision making skills through easy connectivity to someone who can make the decision <instead of you>.

And I found it extremely odd that there is nothing obvious in terms of the discussion online because society views technology through an extremely critical eye on perceptions of how it forms, or doesn’t form, critical thinking skills. And nowhere is the conflict more apparent than in the business world where in a seemingly non-stop 24/7 world where we deem “speed” as having some absurd value above anything else we force more and more decisions ‘up’ in an organization.

Let me tell you how it worked in a disconnected world.

As an old guy we had no smartphones and computers weren’t chugging out hundreds of emails between employees all the time.

My bosses sat with other bosses in some high falutin’ section of the office space <most often with doors and big desks> and I didn’t have easy access to my bosses because … well … they were not within shouting distance and they had their own shit to do.

I had team members, clients and other departments who always needed answers so they could do shit and make some progress <to meet deadlines that I had inevitably placed on them> and, when they needed a decision, 90+% of the time they didn’t want me hanging up the phone saying “I will get back to you after I speak to ‘x’ person.”

And many times I was out of town in meetings and … well … decisions had to be made.

In this disconnected world 25 year old Bruce had to make some decisions … hopefully some good ones.

This didn’t mean that afterwards I didn’t sit there going … “fuck me, was that the right thing to do?” … because I did.

So in that disconnected world I would have to get up when I had a free minute and track down my boss and walk them through what was going to happen because I had made some decision.

I could go to Pat, who would sometimes be laying on his back under his desk looking at a world map he had taped under his desk thinking <claiming it gave him a different view of the world>, who would 99% of the time asking me why I thought it was the right decision, what other things we could have considered and start tearing apart the decision to better understand it.

I could go to Charlie who would 99% of the time go ‘okay’ … and then in a burst of energy start talking about what we could do now, a kind of “what’s next attitude” now that the decision had been made.

I could go to Beth who would always, always, just listen … and then start talking about how we could follow up with some research, or data, or support so that <in her words> “the decision doesn’t get killed by someone else’s opinions.”

I could go to any number of other bosses throughout my younger years and discuss a decision thatIhad made after the fact.

In a disconnected world a less experienced person was demanded to assume some responsibility.

The bottom line it was my decision and I had to live with it. I didn’t have a shitload of bosses who tried to kill the decision but rather seemed to accept it, warts & all, and figure out how to move forward from it.

Now.

A shitload of people may argue that in a connected world better decisions are made <slightly> faster <assuming you can reach the decision maker in some timely fashion> therefore business has benefited.

They may be partially right.

But I would argue 3 things:

<1> Most decisions made at a lower more tactical, or less strategically influential, level are not really business killers nor are they even ‘not fixable’,

<2> by delegating responsibility for a decision ‘upwards’ … someone never learns the critical thinking necessary, sometimes under time duress, nor the burden of responsibility,

<3> and ability to bear burden of responsibility is actually an indicator of future leadership skills.

I have gone on ad nausea over the years with regard to our short term paranoia within the business world and how it is killing us … and this ‘delegate decisions upwards because connectivity permits it’ is just one additional example.

Look.

The people who have the most confidence in their decision making skills, unless they are narcissistic asshats, are the ones with most experience in making decisions. And examining decisions made by someone else <which is what a younger person does if a more senior person makes a decision> is not even close to the actual experience of running the mental gauntlet of making the decision yourself … and understanding he burden of responsibility you assume by doing so.

By outsourcing our decisions to more experienced people, or even the false ‘certainty’ in data, we cheat ourselves.

We are left responding rather than thinking creatively, critically and autonomously.

And maybe worse we don’t give ourselves the opportunity to unlearn what we believe we have learned <which truly can only happen through trial & error>.

Gut feelings, and instincts, or even data … are not the best tools for an uncertain world … they only offer the illusion of certainty. The business world is a complex world with thousands of decisions and a relentless onslaught of uncertainty.

About the only thing to maneuver your way through all of this complexity & uncertainty is by using the skill of critical thinking.

When we deny people the challenge of thinking critically, evaluating situations, making your own decisions and bearing the burden of responsibility we are heading towards a future where future manager will lack the cognitive ability, and critical thinking skills, to effectively think and make good decisions.

While I have several worries with regard to what technology and connectivity is doing to our business world … this is one we do not discuss enough if we are truly interested in the next generation of business people to be better than us.

“But I live elsewhere; it is only that the attraction of the human world is so immense, in an instant it can make one forget everything. Yet the attraction of my world too is strong.”

———-

Franz Kafka

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So.

We talk a lot about the fact you cannot run away from things and far less about avoiding.

Yeah.

We talk about procrastination, which is a version of avoiding, but by avoiding I mean more along the lines of ‘ignoring’. Ignoring meant by that you see the world that you want to live in and conduct yourself in and go about ignoring the rest of the world doing your own thing. That is simply a different version of ignoring the real world. Simplistically you are assuming that the world & Life, in general, is indifferent to you therefore you will go unnoticed and just be able to do what you want to do <in a less unfettered way than if you actually remained engaged in the ‘other world’>.

Sounds good, doesn’t it?

I will say that avoiding some of the more undesirable aspects of Life & the world is pretty appealing. I would also suggest that avoiding some of the more undesirable aspects of Life & the world is pretty unrealistic.

There are a number of reasons but suffice it to say the overwhelming amount of information … even within the narrower walls of a business, is stunning. In the good old days even the worst of things worth avoiding <lies, conspiracies & implications> needed a little time to grow to some size that they became unavoidable. In today’s world those same things need seconds to gain some traction and minutes to grow to some size that they are unavoidable.

Today Google processes 61,000 search queries a second. That’s something like over 5 billion queries a day. This means information is everywhere … regardless whether it is good information or bad information.

Today 99% of all employees in business are online … and nearly 50% of the entire world is online <by 2020 more people are expected to have cell phones than running water>.

My point here is not about the challenges of being interconnected with so much information driven by technology but rather avoiding the world is just not a viable option <no matter how attractive it may seem>.

But please do not focus on technology. Technology is simply a means … without people technology is simply an unused ancient aqueduct. It is people which make avoiding impossible <technology just enables their ability to not be avoided more>.

My version of this is office politics. I hate office politics. Ok. Not just hate … I believe it is people wasting energy and all I want to do is to focus on getting the good shit done.

In a perfect world you can decide to avoid the real world of the office intrigue and just do what you believe is the right thing to do for the business and ‘do.’

It isn’t avoiding by ignoring it is more like avoiding by deciding to ride the parallel rail on a train track.

Unfortunately the business world, and the world in general, doesn’t work that way. No matter how much I may have wished to run on a parallel track it actually works more like an atom in which we all circle the business at some maddening speed in which you crisscross with even the shit you want to avoid.

This gets compounded in several ways … two of which would be:

Someone will always make what you are doing political even if it is not.

Office politics always contain people who play politics to meet their own ends. That is their means to do so. I believe these people can only see the world through the eyes of palace intrigue and political maneuvering therefore they filter everything done by everyone through a filter of “what do they have to gain by doing that.” That is their first filter level. Yeah. Eventually they may get to the more important “what does the business have to gain by doing that” but they almost always judge everything being done on a ‘who is a winner and loser’ scale

Someone will always find something nefarious in what you are doing.

I will not call this conspiracy thinking but, in general, a business culture more often than not breeds a sense that <a> everyone is out for themselves and <b> there is no such thing as a truly altruistic business motivation.

And while it would be naïve of me to suggest that avoiding those two thoughts as ‘stupid & untrue’ it is a little sad that those beliefs pretty much underlie every organization.

Please note, once again, the people aspect in everything I have noted. You may want to avoid things but you will find your destiny along the path you have chosen strewn with a shitload of people crossing your path … uninvited and many unwelcome.

I would suggest that Life is best lived by not ignoring shit and avoiding shit but rather stepping into the world an deal with it. Sometimes that may mean side stepping some of the shit you don’t want to deal with and sometimes that may mean bludgeoning your way over and through some of the shit you don’t want to deal with but if you do this you actually have some control over your own destiny. I say that because the problem with trying to maintain your Life on a parallel track, and knowing that inevitably it will be crossed by people & shit you had been purposefully avoiding, is that you will always be reacting to the bullshit rather than proactively facing it.

Look.

While you may not care about business or business politics my point is my point … you cannot avoid the world to conduct yourself in the ways & means you want to conduct yourself. You are stuck with the world, and in the world, whether you like it or not.

Oh.

The other thing you are stuck with is the fact whether you stay on the road engaged with the world or take another road to try and avoid it … well … you will meet your destiny.

“Possibly,” Jace said, “but you do have to admit that the majority of things are.”

―

Cassandra Clare

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“Who knows himself a braggart, let him fear this, for it will come to pass that every braggart shall be found an ass.”

―

William Shakespeare

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“Or, rather, let us be more simple and less vain.”

―

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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So.

We all have worked with assholes.

We all have also most likely worked with egotistical assholes.

And, unfortunately, we all have most likely worked with competent egotistical assholes. This is the particular type of asshole who actually kind of knows their shit, is overly satisfied with their competence, tells everyone who good they are and says all of this no matter what has actually happened <good or bad>or whether it is actually reflective of reality.

I have never really worked for anyone like this <fortunately> but I do know from experience that these people particularly suck to work with because, yeah, they don’t completely suck from a functional professional standpoint … so you cannot completely ignore them and, even worse, they may actually even have some specific skill you may need at some point.

What makes it suck for you is that they have some serious flaws <not that they would ever admit it> and that they will take credit for anything and everything they can, they will multiply wins in exaggerated results and effort and diminish, if not even blame others, for lack of successes.

They are, and always will be, the biggest self-promoters <assholes> you will ever encounter.

They are, and always will be, the biggest selective users of facts and specifics to showcase whatever self-style & strength they want to portray <their own assholedness>.

They are a legend in their own mind <and an asshole to the rest of us>.

But, at their best, they are not only competent but can actually contribute.

These assholes are tougher to deal with and manage than the incompetent. You can ignore the incompetent <or the ‘less than useful’ or the “beyond their sell-by date’ people>.

Once again … I have never had to report to an incompetent blowhard <or an incompetent non blowhard> but I have had several “senior people who were beyond their sell-by date” who you never permitted in a meeting by themselves <for fear of what they would say or promise> and you always tried to diplomatically curb their responsibilities and impact.

They were not always truly assholes or incompetent just ‘less than desired usefulness’ for the business needs.

But the competent blowhards are a bear to deal with.

You are constantly sitting there thinking … “Jesus … wouldn’t it be terrific to be able to reap the rewards without putting up with the blowhard bullshit?”

I actually found an article suggesting some tips on how you can “harness the superb results these folks generate without having to put up with their acting out.”

Whew.

That article was off base. You cannot harness a blowhard … competent or incompetent.

An egotistical competent person is … well … an egotistical <typically “narcissistic”> competent blowhard asshole and there is little to get around that.

You just figure out how to get around them, use them the best you can and take them head on strategically <knowing you cannot take them head on all the time>.

To be clear.

I am using “asshole” loosely here. As someone noted somewhere … the term “asshole” is also used as a euphemistic reference to people whom we classify as “disagreeable.”

A blowhard is disagreeable but so can a lot of good people who aren’t narcissistic. Shit. Contrarians can portray some asshole tendencies <see myself as a prime example> but not all contrarians are fucking egotistical self-promoting blowhards.

I could argue that since each of us is an asshole to someone the term is always relative. In other words, one person’s asshole can be another person’s hero.

Therefore … in my eyes … it takes a lot of effort to be a competent asshole.

Incompetent assholes don’t know that they are assholes.

Competent assholes KNOW that they are assholes.

I am writing this because, unfortunately, this is a conversation we all have in business. Egomaniac assholes are in every business. We have to deal with them and the reality is that sometimes they are in senior management.

They may actually be competent but they are manipulative, obsessive, and aggravatingly boastful and far too often bullies.

They may actually have some aspects of competence and use it to throw anyone around them who also shows signs of threatening competence under the bus at any given opportunity.

They actually do it under the guise of “creating a competitive always improving environment” when they are really simply insecure assholes who want to diminish anyone around them so they look bigger & better.

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Hayakawa: Use the Right Word:

By definition ‘boast’ suggests a self-important and tasteless pointing out of one’s own successes.

Occasionally the word can refer to self-congratulation for a victory not yet won. Brag intensifies the note of tastelessness in boast, suggesting limitless conceit and, possibly, inaccuracy of the claims being made – bragging about imaginary exploits. And then there is ‘crowing’ which suggests a noisy or vociferous bragging of an extremely offensive kind. And ‘gloating’? Gloating is an intensification of crow – although it need not be verbal and sometimes suggests taunting someone that one has bested.

By definition: egomania

…. an obsessive preoccupation with one’s self and applies to someone who follows their own ungoverned impulses and is possessed by delusions of personal greatness and feels a lack of appreciation.

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Look.

I don’t mind a manager with a healthy sense of ego, but the true competent blowhards are best to avoid if possible because they have elements of toxicity.

In Toxic Workers , a new Harvard Business School working paper, Michael Housman and Dylan Minor look at the paradox of “superstar” workers who outperform their colleagues by 2:1 or more, but who are “toxic” — awful to work with and be around.

The connection between toxicity and productivity has been validated in several studies, but the question that Housman and Minor set out to answer is, “are 1%, superstar workers worth the trouble they cause in the workplace?”

Using a clever empirical methodology, they demonstrate that, basically, you shouldn’t work with assholes. It’s better to hire two average employees than to keep one “superstar” on the payroll, once you factor in the disruption that your talented jerk wreaks on their colleagues.

Simplistically the blowhards distort things. They exaggerate good, diminish bad, consistently use a made up unique formula of uncertainties & lack of clarity, offer alternatives <facts & universes> and serve to only create difficulties in exactly describing what is, and isn’t, actually happening.

While accomplishing some things, which if discussed like a normal human being everyone would be fine with, the abnormal human being says shit like: “I don’t think there’s ever been anyone who in this short period of time has done what I’ve done.”

Uhm.

Unfortunately for whoever says this there is typically some actual proof that someone somewhere has actually achieved a lot more. But that really doesn’t matter to this type of person … all they have to do is do enough and make it look hopeful enough that a group of employees ignore the hyperbole and focus on the fact someone has done something.

By the way.

What makes this truly toxic is the fact the competent non-blowhards around this person start ignoring the blowhard and just doing their own thing <and his because even more toxic to a business the more senior the blowhard is>.

I imagine my point here is that we all know someone at work whose biggest fan is himself/herself. They exaggerate all their contributions and diminish & deflect any blame or negatives.

Those people make it really difficult to compliment. Our first instinct is to try and deflate <or ‘right-size’> accomplishments so that even good gets diminished so it doesn’t get exaggerated. Unfortunately his sometimes means that even when credit is due the person has just made it hard for us to WANT to give them credit.

=============

“Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter.”

—

African proverb

===

Regardless.

We all know some of these people who do not recognize that they are one of those people.

Particularly in business.

They aren’t psychopaths and they aren’t the kind of assholes that are raging assholes … these are just the assholes oblivious to their assholedness. Suffice it to say far and away the number one way they justify their existence is “the end justifies the means.”

“But I made the numbers.”

“We won.”

“We finished.”

All the while ignoring the carnage left behind.

The carnage can be lost employees, pissed off employees, tired <emotionally and physically> employees, angry peers and disappointed or abused partners.

<lost>

They couldn’t keep up or they were not good enough <good they are gone … we weed out those who can’t keep up>.

<pissed off>

You can’t always pamper people to get them across the finish line <they like me because they know it is all done with ‘tough love’>.

<tired>

I pushed them beyond what they thought they could do <they won’t be angry once they see how I helped them realize their potential>.

<peers>

The other managers don’t recognize what it takes to get it done <my project was more important and they won’t be angry once they see the result and how the team responded …or … I am showing them how it should be done>.

<partners>

They have good intentions but I need to keep them focused on our priorities and objectives and needs <they work for us and need us more than we need them>.

Those are the tricks of the trade of the competent blowhards.

Regardless.

Yes.

Success does matter.

No.

I am not suggesting we shouldn’t value ‘the kill’ or even ‘ability to effectively stalk the prey’ in business.

But … Yes.

I do believe how you kill or stalk matters.

Look.

Blowhards can try and convince us of competence in a variety of ways … they can showcase fulfilling promises which does not show the actions of a skilled CEO but rather a bumbling overwhelmed CEO focused on showing action to try and cover up incompetence.

I say that because even bumbling incompetent CEO’s can do some things right in a flurry of ‘doing shit.’ I say that because even a semi-incoherent senior business person can do some things right AND justify it in some fairly creative common sense sounding ways.

The following is something I found somewhere <I cannot find where> from someone who actually responded to “being an asshole manager” which showcase how a competent asshole business person can quite easily justify their actions.

Please note that there is a strong thread of truly competent thoughts.

Please note that if I were so inclined I could go back through every point and slice out the slightly self-righteous aspects and showcase how you can actually be competent and not an asshole AND not pamper your employees’ every whim … but I will not.

=======

…. not sure how you define asshole, but I suppose being blunt, efficient, and unable to cater to every employee’s wants (not needs) goes a long way. I go out of my way to reward my best employees, give them the resources they need, approve their time off outside of work, etc. I take a pedagogical approach to my role, passing knowledge to my employees that will help them advance their careers (and make my job easier). Yet, I’m still the asshole.

Here are some reasons I’m an asshole manager:

I’m responsible for making a diverse group of people with varying job roles work together. Try coming up with one rule or guideline that makes everyone happy.

Some employees only work as hard as they have to. And they hate it when you ask them to do more.

Some employees (often the ones who only do the bare minimum) expect to be promoted just for showing up. You can print them a crystal clear roadmap to success within your company, and they’ll still paddle along, doing nothing to distinguish themselves, then ask to be supervisor.

Ingratitude is the status quo. Once, everyone in the department got tiny raises (three figures). The reason they were tiny is because we shifted our fiscal year; there was a tiny pool for compensation increases. Because someone had left, I was able to get every one of my employees a raise larger than the 1.5% average everyone in the company had to adhere to. I know it’s not a lot, but I put in a lot of effort to make their tiny raises a little less tiny. The fact they got more than the average was clearly explained to them. The response: the raises “were a slap in the face.” Fine. Next time, we’ll spend the money on a clever fucking food truck half of you won’t like.

As a manager, much of your employee’s well-being (compensation, promotion, career growth) depends on you. At the same time, this isn’t a day care center; it’s a business, and my job is to get my employees to do their jobs. That’s a hell of burden, and it makes me less likely to be everyone’s buddy when instead I have to be fair and compassionate, but also directive and efficient.

In the same vein, employees know how much power you have over things like compensation, so they’re never, ever totally honest with you. Personality problems I constantly hear about third-hand magically disappear when I’m leading from the floor. Also, employees will admit to making small mistakes, which upon five seconds of investigation, turn out to be related to much larger mistakes they say nothing about.

Paranoia is the status quo. I can’t explain to employee #1 why I wrote employee #2 up. That would be unprofessional, and would betray the disciplined employee’s trust. Yet if it appears on the surface that I’m being unfair, then the conspiracy theorists kick in and all of a sudden I’m playing favorites. Example: Two employees don’t show up to work. One is written up. The first employee has a documented record of excessively calling in sick, and misses work yet again, without notice. The other, who has an exemplary attendance record, has a family emergency and calls into work in advance. The former would get written up before the latter every time. Employees aren’t privy to these details, so they form their own conclusions baked in resentment. And God help you if the employee who incorrectly thinks they’re being treated unfairly is a woman or a minority.

You can’t listen to music with the N-word in it. You can’t describe the hot girl you met. You can’t tell off-color jokes, listen to Howard Stern, or share clips of that R-rated stand-up comedian. I’m going to write you up for breaking those rules. You may even get fired. The alternative is me losing my job because I tolerated a hostile work environment. So yes, we’re a friendly, down-to-earth, casual company…until tone-deaf legal standards force us to behave otherwise.

Millennials, calling into work because you’re stressed isn’t a good excuse. Especially if it happens exclusively on Fridays and Mondays. I’m going to call you out on it.

When HR makes a decision to fire you, I’m the one who breaks the news. When finance says we can’t afford that tool to make your job easier, I’m the one who communicates the message. Part of my job is to be the face of the company to you. Your bridge to the massive bureaucracy. Of course I’m going to sound like an asshole to you. And no, I don’t have time to make you feel better about it. So put my picture on the dartboard. Slander me if it makes you feel better about things. As long as you’re doing your job and I’m doing my best to treat you fairly and humanely, the rest is your problem.

============

So.

That sounded fairly reasonable, didn’t it?

I chuckled a little and stopped myself from going back and showing the author where they were … well … as asshole <but still pointing out their competence>.

Being a manager and a leader is not easy. If it were then … well … not only could anyone be one anyone could actually be a good one.

I shared the 10 thoughts above because the difference between an asshole leader, and a competent non asshole leader, can often be defined in shades … not vivid colors <although the result often can be viewed in vivid displays of rich & royal hues>.

And that vivid comparison truly comes to Life if you are viewing a competent arrogant blowhard.

I was an okay manager & leader. I did some things okay and some things not so okay. I can honestly say I did get better at it as time went on and I am much better now, and how I discuss leadership, than I was even 5 years ago.

I am much better at identifying incompetence and the characteristics one should look at in defining and judging managers and leaders than I was at the beginning of my career <at the beginning it was just “boy, that feel and looks wrong” and now it is “let me point out the five things which are wrong that makes it feel wrong.”

What I can tell you is that you don’t need me to point out an arrogant, narcissistic, semi-competent blowhard. You can see them a mile away and even if you just “feel it” you are more than likely right.

An asshole is an asshole. Once you have seen an asshole and felt what it is like to be around an asshole … well … you will never forget the feeling.

==================

“Besides, nowadays, almost all capable people are terribly afraid of being ridiculous, and are miserable because of it.”

“I wish I had the courage not to fight and doubt everything… I wish, just once, I could say, ‘This. This is good enough. Just because I choose it.”

―

Chuck Palahniuk

===============

So.

Let me very clear upfront … while this piece will be on Russian involvement in the 2016 USA presidential election I am not discussing, nor suggesting, collusion or coordination of efforts between anything I will outline and the Trump campaign.

The analysis of that will be done by greater minds than mine.

This piece is about what Russia did and the effect on the 2016 election. Let’s call this an analysis of the Russian marketing campaign to support Donald J Trump.

I have the fortune to exchange ideas, on occasion, with some highly qualified intelligence experts and foreign policy thought leaders and all of them continuously grapple not with what Russia did but more so with how to talk about it.

Which leads me to the horrible position that I find myself in <and I imagine any professional communications person with any significant experience is in>.

We know that Russia most likely influenced enough voters to have elected Donald J Trump.

There.

I said it.

The one sentence which seems to be on the lips of almost any credible thinking individual but never seems to be spoken.

This has nothing to do whether I believe he is qualified or not … this is just a conclusion that anyone who knows shit about marketing & advertising has arrived at if they look at the campaign. It took me a while to get there because the overarching narrative ‘cover’ for the election is, and always has been, “Russia never changed a vote or made someone do anything.” While I knew marketing people would debate the seeming lack of understanding in the concept of ‘ability to affect behavior’ it was easier to focus on the truth Russia never got into actual voting machines and changed votes.

This means it just took me a lot longer to get to the truth that many of my peers had already arrived at.

…. I did not want to know this ………..

Whew.

Russia changed votes and voting behavior.

What knowledge to have.

What a wretched position to be in … to be a professional communications person and a believer in America democracy … that is the horrible position many of us find ourselves in.

Why?

Well.

The majority of us know, if we view it through a professional lens, that the Russians communications <propaganda> effort most likely put Donald J Trump into the presidency … and we don’t know what to do and say about it.

Why?

Think about the outcome of this presentation. The main one would be that many people would believe Donald J was not a legitimate president or legitimately elected. And that would be … well … horrible. Horrible for the country, horrible for democracy and … well … just horrible.

I could open this presentation by suggesting Clinton campaign ran a slightly less than effective as it could have marketing campaign but I would have to showcase how the Trump campaign, in and of itself, did not do enough to win. I would then have to point out that an overlaid Russian marketing campaign <which diminished Clinton to suppress behavior in her favor> made the difference at the finish line.

And before anyone argues with that premise please remember that with 136 million votes cast, Trump’s victory came down to a razor-thin edge of only 77,744 votes across three states: Pennsylvania (44,292 votes), Wisconsin (22,748 votes), and Michigan (10,704 votes) – all less than .7% difference between the two candidates and, if reversed, Clinton would be our president.

The 2016 election result is really all about the fact that there was just enough movement in just the right places, with just enough increased turnout from just the right groups, to get Trump the electoral votes he needed to win.

Regardless.

Block by block the truth fell into place. But what make this conclusion truly horrible is … well … what do you do with that knowledge?

It does no good to suggest the current president is illegitimate. None. Zero.

Look.

I am not making this up.

While others look at this in some vague “what could they do to make someone vote a certain way” I look at this from a marketing perspective where I have sat in meeting after meeting analyzing marketing campaigns and tactics to watch what levers <tactics & messages>have been pulled to get someone to do something they may not have considered doing before.

The first ‘block’ was, of course, when the US government warned us that 17 intelligence agencies <or 4 with others tentatively agreeing, or whatever number you want depending on your cynicism but suffice it to say the US Intelligence agencies are aligned in some form or fashion> agreed Russia was fucking within our election. They didn’t go into details but rather just said “they, they are doing this” <and did some behind the scenes stuff to deflect some things they did>.

I would also note that this is where “marketing doesn’t affect my behavior’ attitudes started digging in within the general population.

… in addition to phishing and cracking attacks, these hackers are aided by honeypots, a Cold War term of art referring to an espionage operative who sexually seduced or compromised targets. Today’s honeypots may include a component of sexual appeal or attraction, but they just as often appear to be people who share a target’s political views, obscure personal hobbies, or issues related to family history. Through direct messaging or email conversations, honeypots seek to engage the target in conversations seemingly unrelated to national security or political influence.

These honeypots often appear as friends on social media sites, sending direct messages to their targets to lower their defenses through social engineering. After winning trust, honeypots have been observed taking part in a range of behaviors, including sharing content from white and gray active measures websites

Online hecklers, commonly referred to as trolls, energize Russia’s active measures. Ringleader accounts designed to look like real people push organized harassment — including threats of violence — designed to discredit or silence people who wield influence in targeted realms, such as foreign policy or the Syrian civil war. Once the organized hecklers select a target, a variety of volunteers will join in, often out of simple antisocial tendencies. Sometimes, they join in as a result of the target’s gender, religion, or ethnic background, with anti-Semitic and misogynistic trolling particularly prevalent at the moment. Our family members and colleagues have been targeted and trolled in this manner via Facebook and other social media.

Hecklers and honeypots can also overlap.

—————————–

The experts at WarontheRocks know their shit and I stored away their analysis.

The third ‘block’ occurred when a Bernie Sanders social media coordinator published a report of how he watched online trolls aggressively message against Clinton to Sanders supporters:

He <Mattes> put his expertise in unmasking fraudsters to work. At first, he suspected that the sites were created by the old Clinton haters from the ‘90s ― what Hillary Clinton had dubbed “the vast right-wing conspiracy.”

But when Mattes started tracking down the sites’ domain registrations, the trail led to Macedonia and Albania. In mid-September, he emailed a few of his private investigator friends with a list of the sites. “Very creepy and i do not think Koch brothers,” he wrote.

Mattes and his friends didn’t know what to make of his findings. He couldn’t get his mind around the possibility that trolls overseas might be trying to sway a bunch of Southern Californians who supported Sanders’ run for president. “I may be a dark cynic and I may have been an investigative reporter for a long time, but this was too dark ― and too unbelievable and most upsetting,” he said. “What was I to do with this?”

By late October, Mattes said he’d traced 40 percent of the domain registrations for the fake news sites he saw popping up on pro-Sanders pages back to Eastern Europe. Others appeared to be based in Panama and the U.S., or were untraceable. He wondered, “Am I the only person that sees all this crap floating through these Bernie pages?”

And the final ‘block’ was an 84 page white paper issued by the cyber security firm, TrendMicro, which outlined how easy it was to implement a ‘fake news’ marketing campaign with costs & efforts taken by Russia to influence people not only in America but globally.

That did it for me.

Let me call my ‘4 blocks’ as the cornerstones of the building of proof. I am a marketing guy and an amateur behavioral studier with decades of experience and I can see a marketing campaign when there is one … and I can see when a good one is being implemented in ‘below-the-line’ tactics pushing & nudging people to do things … and I can see one once I have been presented the cornerstones of proof.

This is that.

And this is a horrible thing to recognize.

Oddly enough … our founding fathers worried about this.

In constructing the Constitution the crafters were cognizant, and worried about, how easily people could be led, and led astray. That is why they constructed a three ‘power’ system <executive, judiciary & representative> to insure a President never had access to too much power.

In some ways they assumed at some point in history American citizens would not choose wisely.

As a marketing guy I can honestly tell you that I have sat in hundreds of conference rooms viewing behavioral data pondering choice after choice people made that were reflections of “not in my best interest” … information that reflected time after time … people do not choose wisely.

While that is marketing stuff we should all remember what James Madison said … “liberties are more frequently lost by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power.” That is what the worst of worst marketing is about … making some people choose less than wisely through a gradual and silent encroachment into someone’s decision making process.

To be clear.

I think Trump is inept, incompetent and unqualified but this is not about that.

This is about how Russia affected enough people’s attitudes to affect their behavior … and many of us quasi-experts, and many real experts, believe Russia conducted a marketing campaign that did just enough to affect people’s voting behavior to effectively put Trump in the oval office.

To be clear.

None of us know what to do with this understanding. This is a horrible position to be in. No one wants to suggest the current president is not legitimate and, yet, the truth is that he most likely gained his position through some shady illegitimate ways.

“One is often unconsciously surrounded by one’s own personal reality.”

―

Pawan Mishra

============

“To be ignorant of one’s ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.”

—–

Amos Bronson Alcott

===========

“People who have had little self-reflection live life in a huge reality blind-spot.”

―

Bryant McGill

===================

Ok.

We all have blind spots about our self.

And I mean “we” as in everyone — 100% of us.

And they are almost painful to watch occurring in anyone – particularly in someone you like. With someone you don’t like? It still makes you sit back and think “what are my blind spots?”

Oh.

That sitting back thing.

Judging the events of the past we have a tendency to fall victim to what behavioral economists call “the hindsight bias.”

It is unhelpful because it implies that if we were just smarter in the present, we could see clearly enough into the future to avoid stupid mistakes. But that is rarely the case. The data available in the present are wildly contradictory, and many outcomes seem plausible.

Regardless.

We also have psychological blind spots – aspects of our personalities that are hidden from our view. These might be annoying habits like interrupting or bragging, or they might be deeper fears or desires that are too threatening to acknowledge. Although it’s generally not pleasant to confront these aspects of ourselves, doing so can be very useful when it comes to personal growth, and when it comes to improving our relationships with others – there is undoubtedly something we do that, unbeknownst to us, drives our significant others, roommates, friends, or coworkers a little crazy.

I thought about this mostly because of Donald J Trump. while I have never met the man he seems oblivious to reality – the world and himself.

=================

President Trump in a new AP interview boasted that he has delivered CBS its best ratings “since the World Trade Center came down.”

After being asked about his relationship with voters and lawmakers across the aisle, Trump pivoted to the high viewership numbers his national TV appearances bring in: “It’s interesting, I have, seem to get very high ratings… You know [Fox News Sunday host] Chris Wallace had 9.2 million people, it’s the highest in the history of the show. I have all the ratings for all those morning shows. When I go, they go double, triple. Chris Wallace, look back during the Army-Navy football game, I did his show that morning. It had 9.2 million people. It’s the highest they’ve ever had.”

He then bragged about his ratings on CBS’s Sunday show Face the Nation:

“[Host John] Dickerson had 5.2 million people. It’s the highest for Face the Nation or, as I call it, ‘Deface the Nation.’ It’s the highest for ‘Deface the Nation’ since the World Trade Center.

Since the World Trade Center came down. It’s a tremendous advantage.”

He then immediately transitioned to railing against “fake media”—save for Fox News—treating him “unfairly.”

================

Whew.

Trump doesn’t seem to realize that his ratings get a big boost because people don’t want to miss it if he says something asinine or just plain stupid. He is oblivious to the fact that ratings are not an objective indicator of quality but rather indicative of interest <or entertainment>. And, as 99% of us know … interest does not necessarily equal “quality, trust or likeability.”

Everyone in marketing, those who do it professionally, know the difference between attention & interest as well as why it is important to look at the relationship between positive approval, an negative approval, and the interest scores <and you are a fool if you do not look at those scores>.

Anyway.

I feel sorry for people who are oblivious to their blind spots.

And, yes, oblivious is different than ‘do not see.”

The difference between the two are in fact the ability to be aware, i.e., totally oblivious is to be not capable of awareness.

‘Do not see’ means you could be aware but you choose to not be aware <what you elect to focus or not focus on>.

==========

“The worst bullies you will ever encounter in your life are your own thoughts.”

—-

Bryant H. McGill

===========

I imagine this raises the painful reflective question “are we even capable of seeing ourselves as who we really are”?

Yikes.

That’s a painful question.
Psychology has thought about this question a shitload and they use words like discrepancy between self-awareness <representing how we see and describe ourselves> and external perception <representing how others see and would describe us>.

This comes to Life in a way I believe 99% of us can relate to … times where someone perceived you totally differently than you perceived yourself “oh, I am not that way at all”>.

Or maybe think about it this way.

You meet someone and assess and create a perception and … well … it is totally different than the self-awareness of that person.

We all do this crap.
Psychologists have even designed a “window into your soul” called the Johari-Window. It is one way to illustrate the difference between self-awareness and external perception. It represents a graphic model illustrating conscious and unwitting personality– and behavioral characteristics developed by the U.S. social psychologists Joseph (Jo) and Harry (hari) Ingham. The Johari window looks like this:

——

—–

The “Arena“ represents that part of our personality and our behavior which we are fully aware of. The part of ourselves we display openly and without hesitation when in the company of others or how we would describe ourselves if asked.

The section “Façade” covers everything we hide from others because we believe that it should remain private. It includes secret wishes, for instance or thoughts we don’t feel like sharing. Understandably the extent of this area varies and depends on the company we happen to be keeping at the time. When we are with our partner or possibly our best friends it may be very small because we share more of ourselves with people we trust than with those with whom we may not be all that close. Regardless, with every person there is always something left over that is private and he/she alone knows about him/herself (and that is just fine!).

The area “Unknown” covers everything in our subconscious and therefore is not immediately accessible but still has a considerable impact on our thoughts and behavior: unconscious fears, repressed conflicts, traumata, urges, instincts and much more. According to Sigmund Freud this part covers 80 – 90% of everything determining our everyday behavior.

Even if we don’t want to go all that far, everyone knows that there are many situations when rational and conscious thinking and behavior play a very secondary role and that another part of us somehow takes over. The process of falling in love is an excellent example – or have you ever totally rationally and judiciously chosen your partner? We are unaware of our subconscious just as it is not obvious to others (well, the consequences sometimes are). We will never be able to get to the bottom of it ourselves, it would take considerable therapeutic reflections to come even close.

The last Quadrant, the “Blind Spot” is different. Although we can’t spot it on our own (just as we can’t see our face without a mirror), others can see it quite well and are able to tell us (acting as our mirror, so to speak). Even though we are not aware of it, the “Blind Spot” harbors habits, preferences, dislikes, prejudices and the like, all things that are clearly apparent to those with whom we deal. At best their reports will provide us with information about ourselves, in that way reducing our “Blind Spot” and therefore helping us to work on ourselves. If there is something in my “Blind Spot” I would like to change, others have to make me aware of it first. Alternatively others may discover competencies and skills in it of which I did not think to be capable.

In addition to this window if you google “oblivious” you will see there are gobs of psychological writings and ‘awareness offerings’ available if you ever want to professionally explore you blind spots.

Here is what I know.

We are all oblivious to some extent — some more than others.

Being oblivious to some extent can be dangerous.

Lack of self-awareness is never good.

I think 99% of us know we have some aggravating flaws & personal quirks … we are not oblivious to them instead we simply decide to overlook them as the ‘imperfections that make us who we are.’ At the same time … those same 99% of people do have blind spots — the shit they cannot see that others see. That takes a little self work to get a grip on if we choose to accept this.

Oh.

And then there are the 1% …those who are completely oblivious to what they do and how people see them.

Let’s call them the ones inflicted with is the malady of the ignorant <to be ignorant of one’s ignorance>. I am not sure they are redeemable.

I say that because to be completely oblivious either takes a shitload of work or you are just an arrogant egotist or you have some mental disorder that permits you to constantly live in some alternative universe in which you are the God.

I do my best to avoid the 1% and realize, as part of the 99%, I should do my best to improve my own sight of myself.

“If truth be told, the easy road is nothing more than an armchair in clever disguise. And if you look around, it seems that there are a whole lot of people in the furniture business.”

―

Craig D. Lounsbrough

=============

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.

But small is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Beware of false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves …”

————–

Berean Study Bible

==========================

So.

I tend to believe most of us learn, fairly early in our careers, that bad ideas do not die on their own. In fact … as you gain more experience you actually find that bad ideas can often be incredibly hard to kill –they may actually have more than nine lives.

At exactly the same time most of us also learn that good ideas rarely are seen as the greatest thing since sliced bread and embraced as a good idea as soon as they are presented.

Think about that for a second.

Bad ideas are incredibly hard to kill and good ideas can be incredibly hard to bring to life.

Well.

That’s pretty fucked up.

And, yet, despite learning this I still believe most of us are surprised when we find a bad idea still breathing and a good idea is breathing its last breath.

Shit.

Even I forget this lesson despite having seen some of the most bad ideas in the world live despite my best efforts and some of the goodest of ideas die despite my best efforts.

And I seem to keep forgetting it despite the fact the world is filled with some incredibly absurdly bad factually incomprehensible, or defensible, ideas.

Forgetting this idea is dangerous.

It creates a Life & business world strewn with bad ideas which can quite easily lead to a complacency that bad ideas will exist no matter what we do … or worse … complacency when faced with a bad idea because we believe it is fruitless to fight it.

I will not spend a lot of time on complacency but suffice it to say it is a sneaky little bastard especially when it comes to bad ideas.

But the bigger issue is that, for several reasons, we tend to let our guard down when faced with a bad idea.

The difference between a really bad idea and a ‘shrug your shoulders a little’ bad idea can often be indiscernible.

We have a bad habit of dismissing bad in its initial stages as just “bad.” This lets a hardier & sturdier bad idea off the hook. It is quite possible most of us just hope it smothers itself in its badness and just goes away but more often than not … it does not. And, yet, time and time again we make an initial assessment of “bad, maybe & good” and mostly dismiss ‘bad’ and move on.

I could suggest that not all bad ideas are created equal but it is probably better advice to simply treat all bad ideas as equally bad. Don’t waste your time discerning the difference; just assume a bad idea will be a motherfucker to kill.

Bad ideas have an innate knack to normalize their being.

Once you let a bad idea off the hook when it is initially introduced it has a nasty habit of slipping into the general conversation as “possibility.”

In other words … because it didn’t die before it could draw its first breath it somehow becomes normalized as some viable breathing idea.

Yeah. Normalizing is a word that is being tossed round a lot lately.

As a corollary that all bad ideas can look quite similar <bad ideas> we have a tendency to simply normalize them <as ideas that may not be as good as some other ideas>. Bad is a fucking big bucket to normalize as simply “another idea to consider.”

It gets worse at that point.

“Outsider” ideas take on some personality that almost adds viability even though it is still a bad fucking idea.

It’s like all bad ideas wear black and blend into any crowd … and almost become cool by doing so. Yeah. Just ponder that for a second. How many bad ideas get a label of “cool idea” … but it’s actually a bad idea. Once a bad idea falls into the “cool thing to consider” category it becomes an aggravating difficult challenge for the actual good idea.

Anyway.

A moment back to complacency.

Complacent is a squooshy word and concept.

I tried googling complacency with bad ideas and got only 514000 results. Uhm. But looking within the top 8 results … the office, west point, teen life, politics, religion and a general one … there were none with regard to bad ideas.

This suggests complacency strikes everyone at different times in our lives.

But in no place could I find anyone discussing how complacent in our thinking that everyone can see a bad idea as a bad idea and therefore we can relax <become complacent> because … well … bad ideas just get thrown away because they are bad.

Complacency is squooshy.

Let’s face it.

No one wants to invest energy chasing after some bad idea to be sure it is dead.

Sure. The most experienced of us absolutely circle back after the original bad idea has been killed to make sure it is really dead. But we don’t circle around it and hover over it to see if it is reallydead … we just check in on it.

Basically … we have better things to do than stick around to smother the sonuvabitch to be sure it is dead. But, in the harsh spotlight of truth, this is plain & simple complacency.

I have been burned by bad ideas so many times I have come to sometimes think of bad ideas as tsunamis. They begin as a small shaking of the earth miles down under the surface of the ocean … completely unseen. In this metaphor you may have actually been in the frickin’ meeting where it was declared bad idea and even been there when it got discarded … but you just were not aware of the earth moving way way down under your feet.

From there the bad idea can gain some incredible momentum only to build into some huge wave which can wash over even the strongest criticism at a later date <let alone drown a shitload of good ideas>. Suffice it to say … it can drive you crazy.

I think we have all been in this situation at work.

Once a bad idea has some momentum they are next to impossible to kill.

I sometimes believe this is because <a> some people pretend a second rate idea is first rate and <b> a shitload of people cannot see the difference between a second rate idea and a first rate.

==========

“What’s terrible is to pretend that second-rate is first-rate.”

–

Doris Lessing,

==============

But I actually believe it is because we give bad ideas a free pass. What I mean by that is we take a good idea and start running the ‘idea to implementation’ gauntlet defending it and selling it and sharing it all with the end goal in mind. All the while, as we focus on the good, we don’t notice <or maybe it is just a nagging aggravation along the way> that the bad idea is also in the ‘idea to implementation’ gauntlet … but getting a free ride because it isn’t really being sold … it just keeps appearing along the way as “the alternative idea to the good one.”

While you were focused on good and paying attention to something else the bad idea has gained “a voice” … it can be a person or it can simple be some “myth” associated with it. And when that happens you can find yourself hearing about a bad idea in some hallway from someone who really knows nothing about it … and they speak of its myth in some positive way.

Suffice it to say the moment that happens … you are fucked. The bad idea is not only alive and breathing … it is healthy <in almost mythical proportions>.

Ok.

So rather than bitch about bad ideas let me make a suggestion to everyone.

Life, and business, is one big mosh pit of shit. The shit is made up of stuff to do, responsibilities, everyday commitments and responsibilities … as well as ideas. This mosh pit is a big dark gloomy cloud of stuff swirling around.

Now.

The ideas shit is a little different. What I mean by that is 99% of ideas do not just happen <good and bad ones> like most of the other stuff in the mosh pit.

Ideas need some ‘oomph’ to get thru the mosh pit. They need to navigate a narrow winding path through the big mosh pit of shit from the moment they are introduced to the moment in which it reaches a point where the idea shifts to some action.

As noted earlier … in most cases … the path usually has two ideas jostling each other along this path … a good idea and a bad idea.

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“Our minds are a battle ground between good and bad ideas; we are whatever side wins the battle”

―

Bangambiki Habyarimana

====================

I imagine my real point is that bad ideas do not die simply because they are bad.

You cannot be silent, you cannot ignore them, you cannot be complacent and you cannot simply champion the good idea. You actually have to fight bad ideas.

It may be aggravating to do so.

It may take more energy than you want to.

It may even get a little absurd in how often you feel like you have put a knife through its heart and you still find it alive and kicking not long after.

But if you want good ideas to win you have to accept the burden of the fight. And this fight has a number of rounds and takes place over an extended period of time.

Here is what I know about fighting bad ideas. I now assume they never die … they simply end up in second place to a good idea that competed better.

That last sentence may be one of the best pieces of advice I have ever given to the business world.

I just wanted to write you a letter to bring it to your attention, in case you have not noticed; you really are the president … now.

Yes. You did get elected.

Yes. That new office you get your diet coke in is oval because all US Presidents have sat in that oval office.

Yes. That big eagle on your floor rug is not really your style <albeit I believe it does have gold in it> but it is a sign that, yes, you got elected and that emblem is part of the seal of the United State of America.

I have been meaning to write this to you for quite some time, but I felt compelled to write this letter to you today because yesterday, in the wake of the London terrorist attacks, you seemed to forget you were president for a while.

And that seems indicative of, well, all your behavior since last November <with some small moments in which we got tantalizing glimpses you actually recognized that you were now responsible for 330 million people>.

Last night you took the opportunity while watching the attacks unfold to retweet a Drudge article and a personal tweet about your own travel ban. I am tempted to suggest they were simply tweets of an ignorant idiot, full of sound and fury, simplifying nothing … but I will not. I will use the tweets to remind you that you really are now a president and the president of a certain country called “The United State of America.”

A while back I told you how to do your job because you seemed to be struggling and I thought there were some simple things you could do to rectify your current situation. Today I will simply remind you of some things you may not know about your new job:

Tweets

I really wouldn’t mind you tweeting if you didn’t tweet like a bitter husband drunk late at night just after his wife had left him. The problem is that you do … and you are not drunk and for some reason your wife has not left you. I have given up trying to convince you that words matter <even the ones you make up> so maybe we could have you work on thinking a little less like an idiotic bitter drunk husband and maybe have you think about the fact you really are a President who shouldn’t be bitter about anything and whose wife has not left him <yet>.

I do take some solace in the fact that, for the most part, your drunken bitter idiot-in-chief tweets are becoming irrelevant to the outside world. Beyond media … most simply ignore you the best they can. My main proof? You offer some word salad twisted thought and Wall Street barely responds these days.

On that note. I would suggest that being President and being ignored kind of suggests you are becoming irrelevant. That seems bad <sad>.

I would never suggest you stop tweeting. Hell. It is the best entertainment we have had in years. Maybe you could just consider in the future to just be a little less bitter, maybe sound a little less drunk, and maybe a little less “I am unwanted and unworthy of the love that has left me” and more … well … “holy shit, I am the President.”

That’s all I ask. But I am just an everyday schmuck and you are the President <keep reminding yourself of that>.

Infinite resources

I am dependent upon ‘fair & balanced’ FoxNews, NBC, fake news CNN, Drudge, National Review, Reuters, Guardian and even the failing NY Times for my information.

You are not.

………… Trump picking up phone …….

Mr. President you can actually push a little button right there on the phone next to your canopied bed with throw pillows that have those ruffles you like and maroon sateen sheets and you can most likely have the worlds best intelligence community brief you on what may be happening. You even have a Homeland Security department who could most likely tell you if there are any existing threats which you could tweet America about to calm nerves <and I bet they have a button too>.

In addition you have an Environmental Agency who has a multitude of well researched analysis to offer numbers and results from. You have a Labor Department who has an incredible history of measuring the workplace environment which you have access to for numbers and information <those last two are probably not worthy of buttons on your phone … sorry>.

You may not know it but you also have a State Department with real people in real buildings <some people call them embassies> who have real on-the-ground knowledge of where they are that are most likely to be delighted to speak with you 24/7.

I imagine my real point, Mr. President, is … well … you are no longer an everyday schmuck dependent upon whatever information you can scrounge up on your own surfing the world wide web <yes, it is now worldwide> or scanning FoxNews in the morning. You are the President and you have dozens of departments with thousands of extremely qualified people who have reams of knowledge and data and information at their fingertips at the simple push of a button <and they even know more shit before the people on TV do>.

But what do I know … I am an everyday schmuck and you are the President <keep reminding yourself of that>.

One dollar bill suggestion

Mr. President, just a suggestion. Tape a dollar bill to your desk <and, under my breath, ‘read it you asshat’>:

E Pluribus Unum.

Out of many, one.

I make this suggestion because I know you love money above everything else and maybe the one dollar bill can help, well, center you a little.

It is a fabulous little document in and of itself … think of it as a PowerPoint slide with few words and a killer image.

I would also note the second Latin motto on that same image … novus ordo seclorum <a new order of the ages> which signifies “the beginning of the new American Era.”

Both of those thoughts may remind you that you represent 330 million or so and, well , a country. It may also help to keep this humble little one dollar nearby as a symbol of small certainty as you, I would imagine, are a little uncertain as you try and make the giant leap from everyday schmuck to President.

Now.

I will admit, Mr. President, while I am sympathetic to your uncertainty I wish you would get a grip on it because it, well, creates a sense of uncertainty in the country.

I would ask you to remember, in general, uncertainty is certainly a bitch to a general population. The larger issue is that uncertainty makes people feel poorer <even when they are not>, more divided <even when they are not>, less safe <even though they are not> and less hopeful with regard to the future <even when they should see signs of hope>.

I would also suggest that, in this time & place, this uncertainty has been compounded by the fact we don’t trust anyone on anything <media included> … don’t trust anyone to do what they are supposed to do <government included> … and don’t even trust what was done when they actually do what they were supposed to do <anyone associated with any institution>. Uhm. I hesitate to tell you this but, whew, a shitload of people don’t really trust you either.

All that said. You know what everyone trusts in this wretched place where no one does anything right and is stupid or dishonest or corrupt? The one dollar bill. It is a simplistic symbol of certainty and trust. It may be that you could use his taped one dollar bill to focus you a little.

Now. You may not know it but there was a guy named Booker Washington who said … ““… be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress” <just a note: this guys is dead>. I know that may be a big thought for you so maybe I can dumb it down for you … think of it as if you have 5 one dollar bills, you can also then have a $5 dollar bill. Separate as ones but one as a $5. You see what I mean? Maybe if you look at that one dollar bill every day maybe you can start thinking ‘out of many one’ and be a President for all the $5’s, $20’s & $50’s rather than just a couple of ones.

But what do I know … I am an everyday schmuck and you are the President <keep reminding yourself of that>.

Thank you for your time today.

I am sorry I didn’t include bullet points and killer images & graphs <which I hear you like> but maybe Melania can read this to you.

Dear Mr. President, I cannot promise I will leave you alone after this letter. You seem to not only not know how to do your fucking job but you also seem to forget you are not an everyday schmuck <no matter how many of us wished you were>. I promise I will leave you alone when you fully recognize that you are now a big bad powerful man. You now not only lead America but, if you would elect to do so, you could actually lead in the world.

I do worry, on occasion, that your view of leadership and mine do not really coincide. You seem to feel that creating a transactional relationship is the same thing as creating a “leadership” relationship. That kind of feels like the same logic some misguide businesses use to recruit talented young people with cool laptops, flex time, free lunches … and not vision. Frankly, that doesn’t really foster any type of loyalty, it doesn’t really drive any company value and … well … it is killing the idea of leadership by a thousand cuts.

But what do I know … I am an everyday schmuck and you are the President <keep reminding yourself of that>.

I also worry that by choosing to remain an everyday schmuck you are finding whatever scraps in what you have done to make yourself believe you are doing good things … and you are holding on to them tightly like your teddy bear at night for comfort <in your canopied bed with sateen sheets>. I can assure you that you will need those scraps for comfort at some point if you don’t realize that is what we everyday schmucks do to comfort ourselves … but presidents kind of need to find more than scraps to hold onto.

But what do I know … I am an everyday schmuck and you are the President <keep reminding yourself of that>.

And, lastly, dear Mr. President, I worry that many of the world’s leaders are realizing you are just bluster and bullshit. I am fairly sure they weren’t sure in the beginning but now they know. But, Mr. President, I know you are better than that <I say with fingers crossed> and all of a sudden you will realize you are not an everyday schmuck but rather the President.

But what do I know … I am everyday schmuck and you are the President <keep reminding yourself of that>.

I am sending you my letter today hoping that my sincere thoughts help you realize this.

Mr. President, you have probably done over 100 things, okay, thousands of things over the past year or so which make me sure you are unqualified to be the country leader <and make me doubt you could lead a turd out of a flushed toilet>, makes me sure I dislike your business acumen and makes me sure your moral compass <assuming you even have one> is not working.

I would imagine if you remain an everyday schmuck, in your own mind you will, well, feel exactly the same way.

But … you really are the President. You really did get elected. You can start acting like a President any time you want and most of us every day schmucks will line up behind you when you do because, well, you really are the President of the United States.

All the best.

Bruce.

P.S. – Mr. President, as I read some of your tweets this morning, the morning after the London terror attacks, I have to ask you … what is wrong with you?

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“Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.“

I tend to believe any reasonable business person recognizes that stagnancy leads to inevitable death <although at the same time many reasonable business people also have an unhealthy relationship with tried & true systems & processes, mitigate risk taking to such an extreme level that change almost seems indiscernible and views any change as something that needs to be analyzed from every view imaginable before undertaking it>.

I thought about that the other day when I scanned a fantastic article on WarontheRocks discussing the army strategy of the future.

Within it was a phrase that caught my eye – “disciplined disobedience.”

It first and foremost reminded me that businesses can view stagnancy in a variety of ways in their attempt to “not change what works” while seeking “change what needs to be changed” <ll of which simply means “something within your business is not dynamic and there are scraps of stagnancy slowing you down>.

It secondly reminded me that back in august 2010 I wrote something called ‘discontinuity for successful company continuity’ in which I shared an organizational idea called “controlled autonomy” <others may call it a version of a self organized organization or a decentralized organization or a variety of ‘decentralized-like employee empowered’ terms> … and suggested that was the organization of the future.

—————————-

A continuous discontinuous organization?

Controlled autonomy.

Controlled in that there is a vision, a focus and a functional understanding of what is it we do well.

Autonomy in that outside the ‘control developers’ people can do different shit.

Controlled autonomy is certainly an organizational shift from the past.

But even IBM has looked at this concept.

A past IBM research report suggests that the best analogies for businesses in the future may no longer be the command structures of the military but the self-organizing networks found in nature: schools of fish, flocks of birds and swarms of insects.

Well.

I don’t know about the birds & bees thing but I do understand they are suggesting some decentralization (or autonomy at the employee level).

The struggle with this is that this agility I am discussing is a process where the leadership is not omnipotent.

And further struggle continues with autonomy (and the ensuing agility) as there will be enablers and blockers within the organization therefore the leadership must factor in internal organization limitations (and possibilities) when judging the best plan of action.

What that really means is that no matter how you slice it … organizations are ‘tense anxiety-driven’ structures.

Employees typically oppose new ideas because they perceive they are unworkable (and sometimes they are if the ivory tower doesn’t have their shit together) and bad for profits (or it appears to on the ground people they aren’t making as much money).

And yet we also know that employees always have a large stake in the future success of any organization. Some hesitancy is due to fear or laziness but it can also be due to good judgment.

This is where autonomy comes into play.

It’s not just about diverse views in planning (which obviously highlights opportunities and obstacles) but also some permission of diversity in on the ground decision making.

And autonomy in an organization helps address the truth that is there is a difference between ‘intended’ strategy at the corporate level and ‘realized’ strategy on the business level, i.e., what management wishes to occur, and what is in fact carried out.

That is also the dynamic portion of businesses that permits change to meet changing markets.

Sounds awful difficult to control? (or manage) Sure it is.

But that is why a leader should be paid the big bucks.

———————-

Uhm.

I still believe that.

At the most simplistic level any business faces two basic demands — it must execute its current activities to survive today’s challenges and adapt those activities to survive tomorrow’s.

This means executing and adapting at exactly the same time.

This also means, within your business, there is a constant competition for resources, money & time in order to meet executional demands and adaptation opportunities <therein lies a significant portion of the ‘tense-anxiety’ dynamic of a dynamic organization.

I am not making this up.

Peters and Waterman <In Search of Excellence> argued that organizations must simultaneously be “tight” in executing and “loose” in adapting.

I believe they also pointed out that very few do both well.

I have had many discussions with many businesses trying to convince them that an organization can be very good at both executing an adapting and how to be good at both.

It seems that many business leaders sometimes forget that the organization can sometimes forget they can actually be an organization from an aligned ‘doing’ perspective <because we put such an emphasis n vision and strategy>.

What I mean is that most good businesses have naturally incorporated a sense of autonomy and over time the organizational alignment aspects fade into a subconscious background space and individual departments and groups coalesce around the autonomous aspects <it gives them a sense of pride, empowerment & self-actualization as part of the whole>.

Everyone should note that while this is an incredibly powerful engine in a company it can become challenging with employee turnover <because there has to be some plan to assimilate new people into a subconsciously acting organization>.

Look.

I believe, and vocally espouse, great alignment in an organization more often than not is actually “purposeful fragmentation.” This is the type of alignment which permits the parts of the organization <departments, divisions, etc.> to maintain some autonomy yet always be grounded in what is ultimately important to the organization.

Sure.

I do believe there are things you want an organization to do fairly commonly and certainly can do if you ask the organization to swing into action. And I do believe it is imperative to get these things down and established as ‘rote behavior’ in the midst of an organizational shift/transformation.

But organizations have a nasty habit of falling back on less-than-autonomy type leadership and thinking. This nasty habit occurs as we gain experience because our ‘rules & guidelines’ hierarchies fill up based on a larger collection of specific experiences and more feedback on what has and hasn’t worked.

Someone articulated the outcome of this as “our mental models grow into complex structures of categories, interlinked rules, and weightings. We become less likely to perceive experiences as totally new and instead try to relate them to previous ones, which we group into existing categories. As mental models become more complex over time, major rearrangements become more difficult.”

Basically, as an organization’s size and complexity increase its degrees of freedom & autonomy decrease. and while I just made a sweeping generalization I would point out something that Scott Page, University of Michigan, who studied why some organizations are complex and hierarchical while others are simple and flat concluded — organizations evolve in response to the problems they have to solve.

All of this leads me back to what the Army Chief of Staff said in the warontherocks article. Two thoughts for any business person who embraces the uncomfortable truth that stagnancy is the path to irrelevant death:

“If you’re stationary, you’ll die.”

Consolidated bases and logistics hubs will be untenable, presenting lucrative targets for an enemy with precision firepower. He noted we must “untether

SONY DSC

ourselves from this umbilical cord of logistics and supply that American forces have enjoyed for a very lengthy period of time.” Army units will have to move, set up, move, and move again — “maybe every two, three, four hours just to survive.” Fixed sites of any kind will be lethal magnets for destruction by enemies who will have a rich diet of targeting information — especially since smart phones will be even more ubiquitous. As he bluntly stated, “If you’re stationary, you’ll die.”

Disobey Orders — Smartly

He called this … “disciplined disobedience.” I believe this idea was floated by a past Army Chief of Staff back in the 1970’s but called “selective disobedience.” This suggests that disobeying orders can be justified to achieve the larger purpose of the mission.

[A] subordinate needs to understand that they have the freedom and they are empowered to disobey a specific order, a specified task, in order to accomplish a purpose. Now, that takes a lot of judgment … it can’t just be willy-nilly disobedience. This has got to be disciplined disobedience to achieve the higher purpose.

Milley added:

“disobedience, when done, must be done with trust and integrity, and you must be morally and ethically correct.”

A business competitive field has always been one of chaos and unpredictability <although we have always tried to communicate it as more static in SWOT analysis and crap like that>.

And if you accept it is more chaotic and unpredictable it will become easier to understand why far too many organizations frequently lack reliable communications up and down the chain of command.

As the Army recognizes, and businesses more often should, junior leaders may have to independently make quick decisions upon which battles may be decided and which may have strategic consequences.

In a controlled autonomy the leaders must become more comfortable with some ambiguity and accepting the fact that employees closer to the point of action/decision will be making unsupervised decisions to achieve the organization’s, and leader’s, intent.

Simplistically, as the Army suggests is mission command — empowering leaders with the “why” of their task, but leaving the “how” to their imagination.

Well.

Suffice it to say … while people like me love that thought & concept most business leaders are scared shitless of it.

Frankly, most senior leaders <centralists by management nature> who seek to implement some autonomous aspects don’t set out to deceive anybody. In their heads they know that high degrees of involvement, participation, and autonomy are key elements in high organization performance. But in their hearts, they still crave orderliness, predictability, and control.

They get trapped in the wretched in-between because a central “plan” cannot dictate and bring order to a haphazard, chaotic, unpredictable, and rapidly changing business world – no matter how much we wish it would.

And. It gets more difficult.

With a continuing stress on “bottom line” or making margins as high as possible leaders fall into the financial analysis trap which encourages anything but autonomy.

Financial analysis can clearly show that consolidating and centralizing support services and functions saves money and increases efficiency <in huge PowerPoint graph slides in the conference room> therefore suggesting autonomy is less than efficient.

What doesn’t show up in these analysis are two things:

<1> consolidating & centralizing is most effective & efficient in servicing a static

<2> the inherent alienation, helplessness, and lack of ability to connect with real time customer & market needs or organizational purpose that centralized bureaucracy often brings

I could argue for controlled autonomy for years. And I could begin with the simplest thought that efficiencies may save gobs of money but the processes to do so can be cost you the intangible people energy and passion engine within the organization <and then add in at least 5 additional powerful reasons you, as a business leader, need to suck it up and embrace some ambiguity>.

But now I will argue for controlled autonomy by using the Army as an example and start using “disciplined disobedience”every chance I get.